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The growing discontent behind Nintendo’s fun facade

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Re: The growing discontent behind Nintendo’s fun facade

#141

Post by kodah »

junar wrote: post #52
kodah wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Employers make it a point, often, to blur the lines. Contractors, by government definition, get to choose their own hours, their own tools, they must be compensated dynamically for their expenses. When I was a contractor I felt that I was an FTE with shittier benefits; I was told where to be and when to be there, my tools were dictated to me, and if I ever asked about purchasing something to do my job better I was as…

The word "contractor" is overloaded. Many folks, apparently including the Nintendo workers described [1], are actually not contractors, in the 1099 sense, under the law. Instead, they are W-2 employees of Company B, which is hired by Company A. Company B is legally responsible for offering them benefits, but they don't have to be equal to Company A's. [1] "The specific charge, as first reported by Axios, is levied ag…

That's not "contractor" being overloaded, that's the definition of contractor not growing when companies invented this scheme. It's the same circumstances a contractor runs into, and often the contract company is running really bare minimum, awful benefits.

Re: The growing discontent behind Nintendo’s fun facade

#142

Post by namelessoracle »

munk-a wrote: post #84
abxytg wrote: post #66

You can see this in their offerings. They are consistently 10+ years behind the times in terms of multiplayer and online. That they are still so popular is a credit to how divorced from reality multi national corporate mega giants can be and still succeed. Their games and online offerings, for the most part, frankly suck compared to their competitors. They are alive purely on the strength of the 5% of good games they…

> They are consistently 10+ years behind the times in terms of multiplayer and online. Nintendo has never and probably will never try and seriously compete in the multiplayer arena - they've got some casual multiplayer stuff but they're not trying to out compete Call of Duty, Halo or Starcraft. I do agree that they do milk those main properties for all their worth, but they're pretty careful about releasing bombs - M…

I would actually say they DOMINATE in a specific multi player arena. That is playing with people right next to you.

There is still a lot of desire for games you can play with people at a party, or play with your children and spouse all together on the same screen. Every other videogame maker has abandoned that niche.

Re: The growing discontent behind Nintendo’s fun facade

#143

Post by Dylan16807 »

henriquez wrote: post #138
Dylan16807 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you want this to not be a strawman, you have to set it up so the other construction workers in your house are allowed to do that.

No I don’t. I hire a contractor and they do the work and get out.

You skipped the "if".

In general you don't have to do that. That's obvious. But inside this theoretical scenario you made up, if you don't make a drastic change like that then your scenario is a dumb strawman argument that proves nothing.

The contractors aren't asking for anything the other video game workers don't get. If you don't preserve that aspect, your metaphor is useless.

Re: The growing discontent behind Nintendo’s fun facade

#144

Post by thecolorblue »

frozenport wrote: post #46
blintz wrote: post #17

I suppose this is run-of-the-mill for the video game industry, but man, it's sounds so hellish; people deserve not be humiliated like this at work. Isn't the solution unions, akin to the heavily unionized movie / TV business? Short of that, Nintendo deserves some bad PR for this at least; as long as people keep leaking their crappy workplace conditions to the press, the execs will have to keep reading these articles,…

No. Underlying problem is that Nintendo has a non-viable business model combined with a culture that tolerates things like rigid work hours and low pay. They can't make life better for employees because their business model sucks. The correct thing is to simply not work for them.

My 5 year old and I play Zelda together and both enjoy it. I think their business will do fine.

Re: The growing discontent behind Nintendo’s fun facade

#145

Post by shadowgovt »

wk_end wrote: post #30
shadowgovt wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The healthiest thing to do, as a contractor, is to draw the line in both directions. Be very familiar with your contract and if an employer asks you to do something outside it, reply with a very clear "I'm sorry but that's not in the scope of my duties. If you need me to take that on we can renegotiate." It feels shitty if you're of the mindset that you want to solve problems and not play legal games, but Lord knows…

Not that you're wrong...but (speaking from second-hand experience: my ex was [0] a contractor at FB) this sort of thing is a fabulous way to lose your job. The company will do whatever it has to do to bring the hammer down on any nails that stick out, and they've got enough legal and financial resources to get away with it. [0] https://medium.com/@techworkersco_79433/who-fired-the-ras-or...

You are 100% correct. Unfortunately, that attitude is needed because it also serves as an early-warning fuse for that relationship; the in-built assumption in my advice is the contractor has the freedom to leave and contract with someone else. If the employer tries to extract work from you without compensation, they are abusing the contractor relationship and giving a clear signal that it may be time to take one's labor elsewhere.

Re: The growing discontent behind Nintendo’s fun facade

#146

Post by Sebguer »

chaostheory wrote: post #61
blintz wrote: post #17

I suppose this is run-of-the-mill for the video game industry, but man, it's sounds so hellish; people deserve not be humiliated like this at work. Isn't the solution unions, akin to the heavily unionized movie / TV business? Short of that, Nintendo deserves some bad PR for this at least; as long as people keep leaking their crappy workplace conditions to the press, the execs will have to keep reading these articles,…

It's gotten slightly better for developers, but the video game industry is horrible for most of the people in it. It's tends to be toxic with lower pay & benefits with much longer hours. I guess that's the price for doing something that you love. imo The only time it works "well" is with successful indie companies.

In many cases, successful indie companies aren't much better: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xDPzZkx0cPs

Re: The growing discontent behind Nintendo’s fun facade

#147

Post by jstarfish »

elefanten wrote: post #97
someguy5344523 wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since when is Mario Odyssey a failure? From wikipedia: In the United States and Europe, it became Nintendo's fastest-selling Super Mario game ever, with 1.1 million copies sold in the US within five days.[120][121] According to the NPD Group, the game was the best-selling video game of October 2017,[122] and was listed by Amazon as the online retailer's highest-selling game of the year.[123] https://en.wikipedia.org/…

Yeah, Odyssey was a great success. Great sales. Great consumer and critic reviews. I suspect it just got overshadowed by Zelda Breath of the Wild, which really stole the show for the Switch launch year. Edit: Trying to think which Mario game was NOT considered a success? Maybe Mario Sunshine? That goes back to the Gamecube, and looking at it now... that ALSO had good reviews. I don't think there's been a dud in the m…

> I don't think there's been a dud in the mainline Mario franchise... ever?

People really love to hate on SMB2 (NES).

Re: The growing discontent behind Nintendo’s fun facade

#148

Post by jstarfish »

abxytg wrote: post #121
fasdfasf wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

in my experience the tetris matchmaking takes like 30 seconds to start a new match. doesnt feel any noticeably slower than the time between COD matches or something on xbox

their first party titles are pretty bad. Splatoon is anti-fun -- I play 99% of the games I play with my wife and the inability for us to queue up and play on the same team pushed us away from Splatoon 2 which we otherwise loved. The co-op mode was fun, but since it is nintendo, not available every day. Just to reiterate -- the only multiplayer mode where you could guarantee you get to play with your friends was PvE a…

> Just to reiterate -- the only multiplayer mode where you could guarantee you get to play with your friends was PvE and only enabled some days.

For the online mode of Salmon Run, yes.

It's been a few years since I touched Splatoon but from what I recall, if you go to the arcade, you can set up a local co-op Salmon Run session anytime. It is/was not well-advertised.

Re: The growing discontent behind Nintendo’s fun facade

#149

Post by EarlKing »

pjerem wrote: post #136
EarlKing wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why are you making this personal? Why are you avoiding responsibility? You don't control the world. You only control yourself. Change the things you can change. > That's a very cruel way to look at the situation, when many new adults have zero negotiating experience. Almost no adults have any negotiating experience. That doesn't change anything. You're still responsible for your own actions. You will make mistakes.…

> You will make mistakes. You will fail. You're still expected to get up and try again. Ok true. Nobody said otherwise here. But are you implying it’s ok for companies to exploit this natural naivety ?

No, but I am saying that you have essentially no control over that, but you do have control over your own person. Focus on the thing you can control rather than wasting your time arguing about the things you can't.
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